Lives unnecessarily lost, the Rwandan genocide

Yes, long time no Blip, apologies but life got way too busy there for a while.

I am on a wonderful trip with the Peaks Foundation, where we are in Rwanda to see the Gorillas, then travel to Congo to climb a volcano. We have all had to raise money to help the Frankfurt Zoological Society, who protect the gorillas in the Virunga National Park.

Today we did a tour of Kigali, an amazingly neat, tidy, safe and quiet city of over 1 million residents. We spent time with a womens group, and had lunch in one of their homes. In the afternoon we went to the Hotel that was in "Hotel Rwanda" and the genocide museum. I chose this image as my Blip, a small sequence of photographs hanging in a room, of people who were killed in the genocide. There are literally thousands of photographs hanging in a darkened room, provided from families. It is truly moving and the photographs of the children, and their stories, even harder to see.

There are so many sad things in the museum, and the reality hits hard that the local young adults have all witnessed these atrocities in their own lifetimes. There are wonderful quotations written in the gardens, overlooking the mass graves. I would like to share one with you.

Sometimes, I get terribly sad because I can't imagine what my life will be like. I'll never see my parents again, and yet I'll see the people who killed them, and those people's children, for the rest of my life. I can't bear the thought of it. Donata, 11

If this is just day one, then I can't wait for what more lies ahead.